A majority of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index increased cash to a combined $1.19 trillion while simultaneously reducing spending, keeping a jobs recovery on hold.

Caterpillar Inc., Eaton Corp., Walgreen Co. and General Electric Co. are among 260 companies that ended last quarter with $522 billion more than a year earlier after cutting capital spending by 42 percent. Economists say the dearth of investment is keeping the jobless rate at about 10 percent as the U.S. emerges from its worst recession since the 1930s.

“It’s not clear we are going to see the type of growth following this recession that we’ve seen in previous recessions,” Sandy Cutler, Eaton’s chief executive officer, said in an interview yesterday. That view “is leading people to be cautious as to their rate of reinvestment, and right in parallel with that, in terms of hiring additional employees.”

Why? Where are the bold executives who are willing to take the risk and deploy capital now when investment opportunities are much cheaper than a few years ago? What is holding these executives back? Four factors:

1. Banks are restraining credit and effectively hoarding cash themselves. Why? As I discussed the other night during my appearance on the Barry Farber Show, banks continue to hold an exorbitant amount of delinquent loans (mortgages, consumer loans, commercial real estate, corporate) and are concerned of an increasing default rate on these loans. Regulators are telling banks to increase capital reserves against these loans and expected losses.

2. A lack of attractive investment opportunities. There are plenty of opportunities to allocate cash and make investments, but CFOs and CIOs do not want to take on another company’s headache in the process. Bloomberg touches upon this, as Wade Miquelon, CFO of Walgreens (WAG) states:

“It’s not great having money in the bank earning almost no interest, but we also want to be very smart and very driven” by return on invested capital, Miquelon said then. “Just because we’re generating cash doesn’t mean that we’re going to feel compelled to do something that doesn’t earn a good, robust return for the company and for the shareholder.”

3. Uncertainty in Washington. As much as President Obama may want to state that he is pro-business, the fact is the likelihood of increased costs and taxes associated with Obama’s agenda is anathema to corporate execs.

4. Career risk. As Warren Buffett has often stated, when people are fearful, it is time to be greedy. When people are greedy, it is time to be fearful. Buffett recently bought Burlington Northern. His reasoning? He is making a bet on the long term prospects for the U.S. economy. Most CFOs do not have Buffett’s deep pockets personally or professionally to make those types of investments and are not about to risk their own careers in the process.

Larry Doyle embarked on his Wall Street career in 1983 as a mortgage-backed securities trader for The First Boston Corporation. He was involved in the growth and development of the secondary mortgage market from its near infancy.

After close to 7 years at First Boston, Larry joined Bear Stearns in early 1990 as a mortgage trader. In 1993, Larry was named a Senior Managing Director at the firm. He left Bear to join Union Bank of Switzerland in late 1996 as Head of Mortgage Trading.

In 1998, after 15 years of trading and precipitated by Swiss Bank’s takeover of UBS, Larry moved from trading to sales as a senior salesperson at Bank of America. His move into sales led him to the role as National Sales Manager for Securitized Products at JP Morgan Chase in 2000. He was integrally involved in developing the department, hiring 40 salespeople, and generating $300 million in sales revenue. He left JP Morgan in 2006.

Throughout his career, Larry eagerly engaged clients and colleagues. He has mentored dozens of junior colleagues, recruited at a number of colleges and universities, and interviewed hundreds. He has also had extensive public speaking experience. Additionally, Larry served as Chair of the Mortgage Trading Committee for the Public Securities Association (PSA) in the mid-90s.

Larry graduated Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa in 1983 from the College of the Holy Cross.

1 Comment on Why Are Companies Hoarding Cash?

richard Koo, who writes extensively on the “balance sheet” recession, describes this phenomenon as part of the “balance sheet” recession; this is what happened in Japan during the “lost decade” and beyond and apparently is now happening in the U.S. (and perhaps throughout the world).